Old Woman Springs Road memorial project documents healing, remembrance, and community connection
State Route 247 cuts through the desert between Yucca Valley and Lucerne Valley before heading north toward Barstow. But for many local residents, the section of the two-lane highway, also known as Old Women Spring Road, is also associated with serious and fatal crashes, roadside memorials, and lives permanently altered by loss.
Photographer and writer Miranda Remington became interested in the memorials after moving to Landers last year and traveling regularly along the road.
One memorial in particular caught her attention. It was a tribute to Kevin Arrona.
“I passed by this one memorial, it’s right at Buena Vista, and I thought it was for three different people. It was actually three crosses put up for one individual.”
Remington pulled over and prepared to take a photograph.
“I sat in my car across the street from it. As I was about to take a shot, an emergency vehicle from the fire department came by. And as the vehicle screamed through the frame, I shot three or four frames. The hair on my neck stood up as the lights met the crosses in the frame.”
The image of flashing emergency lights passing by Arrona’s memorial convinced her there was a deeper story to tell, one that extended beyond traffic collisions to the people left behind.
Since then, Remington has photographed more than 40 memorial sites, and along the way she has also met and interviewed some of the families and friends who continue to maintain them, sometimes years or even decades after a loss.
What began as a photography project became an exploration of how communities carry grief forward through acts of care and remembrance.
Remington says the people she met changed how she understood the road.
“I’m focused on the beauty and the love, on how I feel when I look at that memorial, at that cross, at that group of decaying, fading silk flowers, and at the names you can no longer read.”
Families not only shared their stories but also invited Remington to participate in the traditions that keep those memories alive.
She returned to Anthony Parra’s memorial in Johnson Valley, where his sixteen-year-old niece, Bianca Powell, replaced the fall display with a Christmas arrangement she had made by hand.
She also joined Steven Arrona, family members, and friends for the annual memorial motorcycle ride and luncheon, held each February in Kevin’s honor.
Remington is now inviting others connected to roadside memorials to share their stories. She hopes the work will eventually become a book or a public exhibition that preserves a side of Old Woman Springs Road that many people pass every day without stopping to notice.
Remington says there are still many stories she hopes to document. Anyone connected to a memorial along Old Woman Springs Road is invited to contact her through her website or Instagram.
